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We are introduced to the royal family of Denmark: King Claudius, Queen Gertrude, and Prince Hamlet. Claudius publicly mourns the loss of his brother, the late King Hamlet, and speaks of a possible invasion threat from the young, feisty Prince Fortinbras of Norway. He dispatches messengers to urge the Norwegian king to restrain his son.

Claudius grants Laertes, son of the courtier Polonius, permission to return to his university studies. Hamlet, too, wants to go back to university, but Claudius refuses to let him. Gertrude, Claudius, and Hamlet have a tense exchange regarding Hamlet’s father, whom Hamlet is still mourning,

After the king and queen leave, we learn that Hamlet holds them both in contempt for marrying so soon after his father’s funeral. After Hamlet delivers his first famous soliloquy—expressing spiritual despair and cracking angry jokes about his parents' wedding—the guards and Horatio (Hamlet’s friend from university) tell Hamlet that they witnessed his father’s ghost on the castle ramparts. Stunned, Hamlet asks them to show him, and they agree.